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KPN's E-Plus To Launch Four New I-Mode Handsets
Tuesday March 11, 6:12 am ET


HANOVER, Germany -(Dow Jones)- Royal KPN NV's German unit E-Plus will add four new I-mode enabled mobile phone models to its existing range over the coming months, the German wireless operator said Tuesday at the CeBIT technology fair.

Japan's NEC Corp. will launch the N31i handset with integrated camera on the German market in the summer. The phone also allows users to send multimedia messages.

Mitsubishi Corp. will launch its first European i-mode handset, the M21i, next month.

Nokia Corp. will launch an i-mode browser compatible 3650 handset in Germany in April.

Siemens AG will have an i-mode compatible version of its S55 mobile phone in the shops before summer.

The new phones mean E-Plus' customers can choose between seven handsets. E- Plus is Germany's third-largest wireless operator, with some 7.3 million customers.

I-mode is a wireless data service created by Japan's NTT DoCoMo Inc. (J.NTX).

The service, which enables access to news, stock prices, weather forecasts and entertainment through mobile phones, is available in the Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, France, Taiwan and Japan, where it boasts some 36 million subscribers.

I-mode was launched in Europe about a year ago.

Company Web site: http://www2.eplus.de

-By Taska Manzaroli, Dow Jones Newswires; [phone]; [e-mail]